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Meet the ESC Team!

This academic year our amazing team of Environmental Stewardship Coordinators have been hard at work on a dynamic set of projects that are making immediate and long-term impacts on how our university and neighborhood responds, collaborates, and leads amidst our intersecting challenges of an ongoing pandemic, systemic social injustices, economic disparity, and climate crisis.

ESC Team at the Garden
ESC Team: Gigi, Malachi, Mercy, Monica, Grace, Elan, Alexa, Annabella, Elijah (Not pictured: Nyasa, Alyssa, Reggie, Zoe)

The team of 12 Environmental Stewardship Coordinators are students of differing years at Augsburg and with majors in different departments. Alexa, Alyssa, Annabella, Elan, Elijah, Gigi, Grace, Malachi, Mercy, Nyasa, Reggie, and Zoe all come to our shared work through their identities, expertises, and experiences that shape how we as a team want to make change and impact around issues of environmental sustainability. Our team identifies issues and projects on which we want to work through the lens of the Wellness Model for Sustainability (thank you Bemidji State). The work of our small project groups align with the goals set forth by the Environmental Stewardship Committee of the University Council: Culture & Ownership, Facilities & Operations, Scholarship & Curriculum, and Climate Action.

Wellness Model for Sustainability: Environmental systems act as nest, holding economic, social, and individual wellness systems. If in balance, that's sustainability.
Wellness Model for Sustainability

Our work in 8 project areas, yes 8, is vast, dynamic, and a whole lot of fun! Scroll down for some brief overviews and links to more information.

  • The Share Shop team is addressing issues on fast fashion and student access to free clothes & dorm items. Stop by Science 8b or our Pop-Up Collaboration with Campus Kitchen in the Strommen Center!

    New Share Shop Opening Date January 24th Mon & Wed 9am-5pm Tuesday from 11:30am-5pm Due to increase of Covid cases, we will be implementing new regulations. Updates on this will be coming soon.
    Share Shop Hours
  • Augsburg Local and its Salad Project are advancing institutional goals around local purchasing from BIPOC and women/femme/trans/queer vendors, farmers, and business owners. We’ll be rolling out the next round of student-designed, locally-sourced creations this semester. The Fall Harvest Salad was a HIT!
Augsburg Local's Fall Harvest Salad at The Commons
Fall Harvest Salad
  • The Community Garden team is excited for warmer weather and to get back in the soil! Last year’s student plot produced an abundance of tomatoes and peppers, but I’m most excited for the raspberries, which should be in their second-year glory this coming season. This spring we’ll have ways for the broader Augsburg community to volunteer with the team, join the waiting list for a plot of one’s own to steward, and what we’ll be growing in the student/communal plots this season.

    Harvest from the garden student plots!
    Harvest from the garden student plots!
  • Sustainability Operations is our newest project team and they have identified the need to improve waste sorting and energy use on campus so that our Augsburg community can do its part in the mitigation of climate change. Information has been rolling out on our Instagram channel as well as on digital screens around campus; events coming soon in partnership with the Environmental Action Committee!
What's Compostable! Food scraps, BPI food service items, and some household items
What’s Compostable!
  • ESC's IGThis year our Communications team launched our Instagram channel @sustainable_augsburgu and has been stewarding its content to keep all informed about our work and important happenings around issues of sustainability both on and off campus. Be sure to follow, like, and share!

 

  • The Climate Action Team has been engaging students, staff, and faculty to build support and actions towards Augsburg’s Climate Commitment and Augsburg Day Student Government’s 2030 Carbon Neutrality and Solar and Carbon Neutrality Resolutions. The results of this organizing work has led to creative collaborations with courses in Environmental Studies and Art & Design as well as partnerships with facilities and ADSG’s Environmental Action Committee to implement solid actions towards our collective goals: Permeable walkways, Native perennial plantings, additions of water-bottle filling stations, Community Garden visioning, and the exploration of on-campus solar.

Love Local Water

  • A few students are also working on Research exploring avenues and areas for new work as well as ways for us to engage in broader conversations around climate justice through our Organizing Cohort in partnership with LEAD Fellows and ISAIAH.

Over the course of this spring semester, stay tuned here to the Sabo Center blog for in-depth highlights of the work on these projects. Our Instagram channel is also currently featuring 2 ESC members a week, so follow us to find out more about the team, our work, and the latest happenings! If you have ideas of actions our team could take and/or want to get involved in the work, please email environmentalstewardship@augsburg.edu.

Profile: Grace Corbin, Campus Kitchen Student Leader

Photo of Grace Corbin
Grace Corbin preps a meal for one of Campus Kitchen’s partner sites.

For Grace Corbin, food justice is not just about making sure everyone can eat. As a participant in Augsburg College’s Campus Kitchen program throughout her four years at Augsburg—this year as a student leader—Grace has come to understand the sharing of food as an essential aspect of breaking down social and cultural barriers. Whether it is through serving food to elders at the Ebenezer Towers, gleaning food from the Mill City Farmers Market, or growing food in the Augsburg Community Garden, Grace sees all of the aspects of Campus Kitchen as opportunities for relationship building with community members, fellows students, and staff. Relationships, she says, are key to building equity when it comes to food access, and health and community well-being more generally.

Grace’s time with Campus Kitchen has also allowed her to develop skills and interests that she might not otherwise have explored. Grace credits her experience with Campus Kitchen—particularly learning about food systems and food waste—as inspiring her interest in environmental sustainability and ultimately her interest in pursuing faith-based environmental work after graduation. Co-leading a student plot in the Augsburg Community Garden and our weekly gleaning efforts this summer provided her with an experiential learning opportunity that quickly pushed her out of her comfort zone to learn about vegetables, event planning, the logistics of food distribution, and the diverse community that surrounds Augsburg’s campus. Grace took on the challenge: “I learned a lot of things about myself…(and) how willing I am to challenge myself.” Participating in Campus Kitchen was even a physical feat: over the course of last summer, Grace and a fellow student lifted over 5,000 pounds (!) of leftover produce from the Mill City Farmers Market and distributed it weekly to elders in a nearby apartment complex.

Augsburg Campus Kitchen is part of the national Campus Kitchens Project, which focuses on

  • Strengthening Bodies by using existing resources to meet hunger and nutritional needs in our communities
  • Empowering Minds by providing leadership and service-learning opportunities to college students, and educational benefits to adults, seniors, children, and families in need
  • Building Communities by fostering a new generation of community-minded adults through resourceful and mutually beneficial partnerships among students, social service agencies, businesses, and universities

Campus Kitchen at Augsburg focuses on four aspects of food justice: Food to Share (free meals, on-campus food shelf, and gleaning), Food to Grow (community garden), Food to Buy (farmers market), and Food to Know (food education).

Interested in learning more about the work of Campus Kitchen through the Sabo Center at Augsburg College? Take a look at our website or check out our day-to-day on Facebook. And you can always volunteer! Contact Campus Kitchen director Allyson Green by emailing greena@augsburg.edu.